


Someone to Die For

by victoriousscarf



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 02:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ori had thought Fili might be worth more than any treasure under the mountain and dwarves love only once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone to Die For

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the rest of the Hobbit book and even the Fellowship of the Ring (in a pretty vague way). 
> 
> Wrote while listening to The Birthday Massacre's "To Die For" on repeat. 
> 
> Yeah I have no idea where this came from, carry on and enjoy.

The first time Ori saw Fili, he thought that was someone he could die for.

The elder brother, and direct heir to Thorin, who swaggered around the Blue Mountain with his leather and furs, was one of the most beautiful things Ori had ever seen. His hair wasn’t quite the same shade of yellow that gold was but as Ori stood behind him one day, he wondered if he might not value that shade more highly.

Not that he had anything in the world to recommend himself to the dwarf princeling.  Fili, along with his brother who was never far from his side, was a trained warrior, wielding often two swords at a time and throwing axes with precision sometimes even Dwalin looked vaguely jealous of. Ori could aim with a slingshot.

Fili and Kili were constantly getting into so much trouble it was a common sound to hear them being scolded by their elders, as they sat calmly and smiled, before going off and doing the same thing over—or something even more dangerous. Ori rarely produced a reason to be scolded, and Dori was generally trying too hard to appear genteel to raise his voice. Sometimes Nori would huff and look over at him in disgust, like maybe Ori wasn’t what he wanted in a younger brother but Ori never found himself on the receiving end of one of Thorin’s bellowing lectures.

Ori lived relatively quietly, following his oldest brother around and learning how to scribe, writing things down and sketching different flowers and people. It distressed him how often he drew Fili’s profile only to wrinkle it up and throw it away because he never quite got it right.

One day he sat outside, sketching as usual, considering the way Fili’s braids fell when a shadow appeared over the page and he looked up to see Fili and Kili, coming in to the mountain from what looked like a hunting trip, Kili carrying several rabbits slung over his shoulder. He shut the sketch book as quickly as he could without slamming it. “Y-yes?” he managed, looking up and wondering if he should stand.

“I’m just curious why I always seem to see you out here,” Fili said, looking at the closed book. “And what you’re always scribbling?”

Ori blinked at him, trying to register that Fili admitted to actually having some idea who he was before Kili laughed. “You know lavender isn’t very manly, right?” he said, and Ori flushed. Sometimes when it was in season, he’d braid a small piece of the flower into his hair,

“Kili,” Fili said, eying his brother, who laughed and shrugged at him.

“Well it’s not.”

“Not everyone has to be as manly as you,” Fili teased, pulling on his brother’s hair and Kili laughed again, Ori watching them and wondering what his life would be if his brother’s ever acted like that. He couldn’t even imagine. His hand came up to tug on the small spring of the plant plaited near his face as Fili glanced back toward him. “Anyway,” he said, shoving Kili’s shoulder. “My brother aside, what is it you draw all day? You look so engaged with whatever it is.”

“Plants, mostly,” Ori said, slinking back. “And-and animals. Sometimes people.” _You a lot of the time_ , he added silently.

“I might like to see them sometime,” Fili said with a smile and Ori’s stomach turned over and he couldn’t tell if it was fear of being judged by someone like Fili, or the simple fact _Fili_ had smiled at _him_. He nodded wordlessly as Kili laughed again and finally pulled his brother inside the mountain, making their way to the kitchen to drop the rabbits off—or possibly to make a fire in their chambers and eat the rabbits themselves and get yelled at again.

Watching them go, considering the sway of Fili’s braids, Ori drew his sketchbook up to his chest and just concentrated on breathing again.

Later, when Nori informed Dori that he was joining Thorin on his quest, Dori wavered and shook his head and said to leave that to the warriors. Only Ori had over heard that Fili and Kili were going and decided he was old enough to finally go on something like a quest himself.

Once Dori found out Ori planned to go, he could do nothing but go himself to watch out for his youngest brother—and keep an eye on Nori too for that matter.

Ori wasn’t sure how to feel about Bags End once he picked himself off the floor enough to look around. It was homey, but strangely lonely with only one hobbit living there with space for plenty more. He was used to being under mountains, and while the place was still in the ground, there weren’t the mines and connected quarters and constant companionship and he wondered how Bilbo Baggins stood it.

But he soon enough got distracted from such thoughts when Fili came around the corner and took his plate from him with a smile, throwing it down the hall to his brother. Ori could feel his breath stutter in his lungs when he realized for the first time, physically, what it meant to be on this quest—constant, probably fairly close contact with Fili.

He hoped suddenly he would be able to handle it.

Though, luckily—or unluckily for him, depending on his mood—Dori rarely left him out of his sight, and Nori was a constant presences at his elbow, and Balin was glad of someone to tell his stories to. Fili, for the most part, was with his brother or scouting or speaking in low tones with Thorin at the front of the group. It was only rarely that Ori found himself riding next to or behind Fili without someone else to occupy the heir of Durin’s attention.

One day, a rare day, Fili rode next to him as they made their way across a slopping plain, and Ori watched him, trying to think best how to capture his profile. “Do you ever show anyone what you draw then?” Fili asked and Ori startled.

“What?” he startled and shook his head. “No, not often.”

Fili smiled and his chest fluttered again. “So will I ever get to see any? I am curious you know.”

Ori flushed again and hunched his shoulders slightly and spent the next leg of their journey showing Fili selected pages and sketches. He went to sleep that night feeling somewhat shaky.

Soon enough everything went to hell, and they’re on the run and moving and going over mountains and then suddenly under them, and sometime when they’re in the goblin kingdoms Nori shoved a hammer at his chest and he uses it, running wildly. They barely took a breath and a rest before running again, and Mirkwood is like his worst nightmare brought to life and put in front of him.

He’d never liked spiders.

It’s only when they’re locked up in Mirkwood by the elves that he thinks he’s breathing again, but then he’s separated from the others and has too much time to think. Sitting in the cell, sketching on the walls with a piece of charcoal that had been in his pocket, he thought a lot about Fili, and if he was still with Kili or if the elves had dared to separate the brothers. Mostly he just thought about Fili though, and what might happen on this quest, as he sketched out images of braids he hoped no elf would ever understand.

But then they were moving again, and he felt sick relief to see Fili in the hallway as Bilbo freed them all from their cells before packing them up into barrels, and come to think of it, Ori had never much liked small, dark spaces either and he spent most of that horrible trip shaking or passed out in exhaustion. Once again he had little to do except think about Fili.

In Laketown, there was a party thrown for them, and they had time to recover their strength before the last journey to face the dragon. Many of the dwarves looked upon the parties thrown for them by the Master of Laketown with some slight distaste, but they could never turn down food, and Bilbo looked hungrier than even themselves.

One night, early on, Ori sat outside, feet dangling toward the water as he sketched. He looked up as the door behind him opened, Fili and Kili tumbling out, Kili muttering something and heading in the opposite direction as Fili wavered before plunking down next to Ori. Eyes widening, Ori watched him as the other dwarf leaned against one of the wooden posts holding the town above the water.

“Can I help you?” he asked after a cautious moment.

“Only if you’d like,” Fili said, smile tired. “I just wanted a moment’s quiet away from that lot.”

Ori didn’t ask if that lot were the humans or their own band, and he reached down, fiddling with the sketchbook and with the hem of his sweater, which had seen many better days.

They sat in mostly silence for a while, murmuring different things back and forth before Ori looked over and the light hit Fili just right to highlight his hair and face and before he could think better of it Ori was leaning over. Usually he was good at not doing anything foolish, and thinking better of most things but he didn’t give himself the chance to back out of kissing Fili. The touch was brief as he registered it before jerking back, Fili watching him go and Ori almost knocked his price sketchbook, with all his drawings and notes about the journey into the water.

“So that’s what’s going on,” Fili murmured, watching him.

“I don’t realized you knew anything was going on,” Ori squeaked and leaned back slightly further before Fili bore down on him and it wasn’t him daring to kiss the dwarf prince without a kingdom anymore, but said princeling plundering his mouth instead, Fili’s hands cupping first his cheeks and then sliding down to his waist and they kissed under a chilly moon.

Ori foreswore all treasure after that so long as he could feel Fili’s hair in his hands.

He felt like he could face down the dragon Smaug himself and kill him for Fili.

Only, it wasn’t any of the dwarves that killed Smaug, but a human bowman with the help of a thrush. While the dwarves occupied the guard tower, waiting for the humans and the elves to approach, and waited for Dain to come from the Iron Mountains with war in the air and the temperature getting colder, Ori spent many nights curled up against Fili. The heir of Durin would sling an arm over his shoulder, Kili sitting comfortably on his other side and Ori was sure they would be happy. Even war couldn’t take that away.

Except he was wrong again.

The humans and elves came and Bilbo left and Dain arrived with his army of dwarves, only they didn’t fight each other as suddenly orcs came streaming over the hills with wargs and battle cries on their lips and blood lust in their veins.

Whatever battle might have been fought changed into the Battle of Five Armies, the elves, humans, and dwarves coming together against a greater foe and whatever horrors Ori had seen couldn’t compare to that battlefield.

And while, long ago, he’d thought he would be willing to die for Fili he couldn’t do anything to save him in the end. He watched Kili fall in the fight and Fili moments later, the brothers together even then and he stood too far away to do anything except yell in impotent rage and horror.

He barely survived the battle, but survive he did, though none of Durin’s line did.

Ori could barely stand during the funeral held for Thorin and Kili and Fili but stand he did.

He helped Balin with the letters and papers of state that a new kingdom, or rather a reclaimed kingdom needed and some days he could actually breath again, but those days were rare and far in between. More  often he would walk down the twining corridors and stop in front of the tombs of Fili and Kili, sons of Dis and nephews of Thorin and every time he would see if he could do it without laying his head against the stone and crying.

It was said dwarves could only love truly once.

Even as he stood in Moria, years later, watching the goblins swarm into the room and next to Balin’s tomb, he believed it. Because even then his thoughts were for Fili, who had fallen so long ago.

Who he’d once thought he might die for.

Whose hair was all the golden he ever wanted and smile the greatest treasure he’d known.


End file.
